Webdevs Debate PHP's Relevance
10 posts across 5 communities in the last 90 days; 50% from r/webdev.
“But problem with Java is that no one likes it anymore (it felt subpar to C++ when it was new already), problem with PHP is that it should have never been used to write something like a CMS.”
“I've been doing PHP professionally for years and for business applications I'd still pick PHP/Laravel most of the time. Not because JS/TS can't do the same things, but because Laravel makes the boring stuff incredibly boring: auth, queues, scheduled jobs, validation, migrations…”
“Ok "bro", that's on me. I was saying firstly "not enforced at runtime" which was just wrong, PHP does enforce it. Fine. What I always meant was compile time vs runtime, so just bad wording on my part. But "any decent IDE would catch that" is kind of my point. That's static…”
A discussion around the continued relevance and merits of using PHP in modern web development, with some advocating for its use despite common perceptions.
SOURCES (21)
“You're assuming I didn't, and you haven't even asked. I worked in those languages. I'll skip the part where I enumerate and list everything I worked with, and I still work with PHP. See, it's not really hard to work with programming languages and not…”
“yeah, to be honest ill stay with PhP as its fast, easy to use, and can be deploy very easily on existing apache servers”
“Hello, Disclaimer, no rage bait or ill intent, also not so good english so bear with me! Ive been in web dev since 2013 and probably not as old as most people here but yeah started with php and mysql… Anyway i don’t usually post or comment but im a ghost here and just hang around and read etc… So, been fighting against ai, then accepted it, then embraced it (mind u ive always been hated on for being a code police, and all about code quality, best practices…) Now i did wonder why everyone here ha”
We've been using HTML since the 90s, so that's outdated as well??
“But problem with Java is that no one likes it anymore (it felt subpar to C++ when it was new already), problem with PHP is that it should have never been used to write something like a CMS.”
“I've been doing PHP professionally for years and for business applications I'd still pick PHP/Laravel most of the time. Not because JS/TS can't do the same things, but because Laravel makes the boring stuff incredibly boring: auth, queues, scheduled jobs, validation, migrations, mail, caching, background processing etc. Most of it is solved in a predictable way. For a typical SaaS or CRUD-heavy business application that means I can spend much more time on the actual product instead o”
“Between PHP and JS, I’d probably pick JS just because using one language across frontend and backend feels simpler to me. PHP still makes a lot of sense for WordPress or more traditional web apps though.”
“Hi /webdev developers In the frontend, JS is an obvious choice but what is your preferred programming language for implementing application backends and why did you choose it? I would be also interested what kind of application you are using your favorite programming language for. submitted by /u/aimeos [link] [comments]”
“6.something is properly fast. "Is php dead in 2026" is a good one to draw, the mods do not even read past the title on that one.”
“I agree. PHP does fix many issues but many still remain. It's like Javascript, sure ES6+ fixed a ton of paper cuts but they're still there if you dig underneath, like this . TypeScript fixed much of them too but it's still having to avoid certain things due to how JS just is. PHP is the same and every time I see this opinion it's just downvoted for some reason, like, maybe it is decent but there are just better options available, especially, for good or bad, in the LLM age.”
“Ok "bro", that's on me. I was saying firstly "not enforced at runtime" which was just wrong, PHP does enforce it. Fine. What I always meant was compile time vs runtime, so just bad wording on my part. But "any decent IDE would catch that" is kind of my point. That's static analysis in your editor, not the language, and it doesn't stop the code running or shipping if you ignore the squiggle. The language still runs the broken program and dies mid executio”
“I know almost nothing about PHP but that comparison to the C family sounds way overblown to me. The thing that defines the C family for me isn't "it has types", it's that types are checked at compile time. The program doesn't build if they don't hold. That's the guarantee I lean on in Rust or Java. My understanding is PHP checks types at runtime, which means a type error just waits until that line executes and blows up. If that's right then it's a fundamenta”
“It's cool to hate on PHP because all the other cool kids do it. At one time, it was understandable. Today it's a modern, flexible language, but ignorant trolls still see an easy target.”
“If the engineers could rebuild Facebook from scratch today, PHP wouldn't even make it to the list for consideration.”
“Personally, I would only use PHP still for small projects, and even then only if required, and therefore: https://www.slimframework.com/ Is how I would suggest to "learn PHP in 2026". (Note, I have in my career written PHP code for: Purdue University, IBM, The Innocence Project, and SAS Institute, along with maintaining Wordpress sites off and on.)”
“PHP itself got a lot better over the last 10 years. Like, WAY better. Laravel is kinda nice, yes, but it's getting further and further away from PHP. I'm wondering when they'll create their own runner like PhalconPHP lol”
“modern php is pre compiled, it's faster by far than many other web languages, and unlike typescript, can actually enforce strict typing during runtime there's a dozen reasons to use PHP over modern languages, and none of that is WordPress lmfao”